sea, including land carriage on either side, than it is to transport
English produce from one part of our country to another. English homegrown
fruit would be cheaper were it not for the difficulty of buying suitable
land at a reasonable price, and the cost of transit. For the production of
prime fruit there is a lack of sufficient intelligence, of scientific
culture and co-operation.

Vegetables--using the name in its popular sense--contain valuable saline
constituents or salts. By the usual method of cooking a large proportion
of the salts is lost. It is better to steam than to boil them. The fibrous
portion of vegetables is not all digested, but it is useful in stimulating
the peristaltic action of the bowels and lessening any tendency to
constipation. Vegetables are more especially useful to non-vegetarians to
correct the defects of their other food.

The potato belongs to a poisonous order--the _Solanacæ_. There is a little
alkaloid in the skin, but this is lost in the cooking. The eyes and
sprouting portions contain the most and should be cut out.

Fungi.--There are about a hundred edible species in this country, but
many of the fungi are poisonous, some intensely so. It can scarcely be
expected that these lowly organised plants, differing so much in their
manner of growth from the green or chlorophyll bearing plants, can be
particularly nourishing. It is only the fructifying part, which appears
above the ground, that is generally eaten. It is of very rapid growth. Of
9 edible fungi of 4 species, obtained in the Belgrade market, the average
amount of water was 89.3 per cent., leaving only 10.7 per cent. of solid
matter; the average of fat was 0.55 per cent. The food value of fungi has
been greatly over-rated. In most of the analyses given in text-books and
elsewhere, the total nitrogen has been multiplied by 6.25 and the result